“They know perfectly well that when I spoke in the Commons I was saying what I believed sincerely to be true and what I had been briefed to say, like any other minister,” he said.

Mr Johnson said he corrected the record as soon as possible, and said committee members “know that”.

He condemned the committee as a “kangaroo court”, and claimed that its “purpose from from the beginning has been to find me guilty, regardless of the facts”.

His statement said: “It is very sad to be leaving Parliament – at least for now – but above all I am bewildered and appalled that I can be forced out, anti-democratically, by a committee chaired and managed, by [Labour MP] Harriet Harman, with such egregious bias.”